Islam Karimov

TASHKENT, May 8. /TASS/. Uzbekistan’s leader Islam Karimov departed for Moscow on Friday morning to join celebrations marking 70 years since Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, the president’s first trip abroad since winning another term in the vote in March, Karimov's press service said.

"Islam Karimov will attend a meeting of heads of state in the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States], held as part of events to commemorate the 70th anniversary of victory," the press service said in a statement.

"This is Islam Karimov’s first foreign visit after his reelection as president on March 29, 2015," it said.

Official statistics show that over 1.4 million Uzbek nationals fought in the 1941-1945 war of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany and over 400,000 of them were killed, while another 130,000 were pronounced missing.

In the March 29 presidential election, Uzbekistan’s leader Karimov won another five years at the helm of the Central Asian state, gaining 90.39% of the vote.

Karimov, 77, is the oldest out of the former Soviet Union states' leaders. He has been in power since 1989 when he was selected as the Communist Party leader of Soviet Uzbekistan. He became the president of independent Uzbekistan in 1991.